Halfway House Horrors After Questionable Philly Lockup

PHILADELPHIA (CN) – An otherwise ordinary civil suit against indicted Philadelphia police officers for assault and conspiracy also alleges that a halfway house for newly released convicts was overseen by a cunning drug dealer who threatened them with violence and forced residents to fight one another. The May 7 federal complaint is one of dozens filed against Officer Thomas Liciardello and his five partners in the narcotics squad named in a 2014 indictment that accuses them of robbing and beating both drug dealers and citizens. But an additional named defendant to the latest action is the Kintock Group, a King of Prussia-based halfway house with a location in the Kensington neighborhood of Philadelphia. Two of the action’s 14 named plaintiffs, Juan Delvila and Juan Soler, allege that a Kintock Group official they identify only as “Supervisor Carmona” openly boasted about his connections with local drug crews when they got there, and ordered other residents to beat them after they declined to help him traffic narcotics. Delvila and Soler say it was Licardello and his partners who arrested them for the charges that put them in prison. At Kintock, Carmona allegedly threatened to put Delvila in a “combat match,” which the complaint describes as “a frequent occurrence at the Kintock facility, whereby guards would lock 3-4 inmates into a small cell, and bet amongst themselves and with the inmates about who would emerge as the winner.” Delvila then “left Kintock without permission to avoid being murdered by Supervisor Carmona and other staff,” according to the complaint. Soler says his refusal to help Carmona with drug trafficking led the supervisor to inform Soler “he would no longer be receiving any of his prescribed medication from the medical area.” Carmona then handed Soler a bed sheet, according to the complaint, telling him he “could always take the easy way out.” President Barack Obama pardoned Kintock CEO Diane Mary DeBarri this past December on a 1984 conviction for conspiracy to manufacture and distribute methamphetamine. The suit also includes claims by other plaintiffs similar to those routinely filed in the Eastern District, alleging that Licardello and the other officers broke into their homes and robbed them. Delvila and the other plaintiffs seek punitive damages for violations of federal anti-racketeering law, conspiracy, assault and battery, and other claims. They are represented by David Wesley Cornish of Cornerstone Legal Group.